


Ink In Your Veins

by QuillerQueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, InkHeart AU, Other, Pre-Outlaw Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2019-03-07 05:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13427838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Prompt 17 of OQ Prompt Party 2017: Ink Heart AU. Whenever Regina reads a story out loud, characters come to life. She vows never to read out loud again. One day she comes home to find Robin Hood in her son's room. Henry confesses that he shares her strange gift.





	Ink In Your Veins

Regina Mills had vowed a decade ago to never use the gift she'd been cursed with ever again.

Ten years-to a dot. Ten years since her fiance died, all because of her and the power she wields. There would be no more victims.

Ten years since her little prince was born, and two weeks later he'd enter her life and change it forever. She's given him everything, poured into him all the love she had in the entirety of her battered and bruised heart. Everything but one thing.

She's never read him a story.

And now he finally knows why.

Regina looks from her son's startled face to the book in his lap, a well-loved copy of  _The Adventures of Robin Hood,_  then to the man by the window with his bow drawn and arrow pointing in their general direction.

"Mom, I swear I didn't mean to," Henry blurts out, "I don't even know how it happened. He just-he just sort of appeared out of thin air!"

"I believe you, Henry."

He sighs in relief, hugging her back when she loops an arm around his shoulder. Thank god he's all right.

Then she turns to the archer, green-clad and frowning, his eyes like a stormy sky studying her with less hostility and more curiosity than he has a right to.

"Now if you would please just stop aiming that thing at my son," Regina says, "I will explain everything."

He doesn't take unkindly to the hint of bite in her voice, but lowers his bow an inch or two.

"Forgive me, milady-I've just been snatched from my tent and deposited in your home out of the blue. Surely you can understand my caution. But I promise I've no intention of harming your boy."

"Mister-Mister Hood," Henry chimes in, sliding off the bed and moving to stand beside Regina. "I'm sorry. I think I brought you here. I just don't know how."

This is it, then. Time for the truth to come out. She's not sure she's ready-but she also doesn't have much choice.

"Henry," she sighs, guiding him back to the bed and sinking down next to him because this might get long. "There's something I never told you."

So she tells him. About her gift and her curse, about how pages come to life to the mere sound of her voice, about how she could never partake of the simple pleasure of reading her little prince a bedtime story.

Their visitor remains at his spot by the window, his eyes alert and ever on her when she glances his way. By the time she's finished, he's lain down his weapon.

"And I have the same ability?" exclaims Henry, who's been listening with rapt attention. "This is so cool!"

Regina tries to keep a straight face despite the sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. She can hardly begrudge Henry the excitement after all-she used to be the same. And it's led to horrible things.

"I know it is. But it's also dangerous. Robin Hood, well, he's a hero. But villains can come over too, and all sort of creatures. Your father-" They've always referred to Daniel that way, even though he'd died before the adoption was completed. "He got in the way of the Queen of Hearts, and it cost him his life."

She's never said those words out loud before. It breaks her heart in whole new ways to see Henry's face fall as it sinks in.

"Is that why you never told me?" He frowns. "About your gift? You didn't want to use it anymore?"

"Exactly. Now," she takes a generous gulp of air and smiles her encouragement. "Why don't you go ahead to the kitchen and make us all some hot chocolate? We'll be right there."

Henry regards her then their guest with narrowed eyes, and rises to pad out of his bedroom and downstairs. Soft clinking noises from down below fill the momentary silence.

"So I've been magicked here by your boy." Robin Hood shakes his head, breathing a small, incredulous chuckle. "I suppose it could've been worse."

"Could it?" The answer to that question, in Regina's experience, is always yes; but the man's cavalier attitude irks her. "Does this sort of thing happen to you often?"

"Not exactly, no." He seems to catch on to the tension seeping into her words, and mitigates the impact of his sarcasm-coated words with a half-smirk that tickles in her belly. "I'm more used to being hunted and betrayed left and right to the sheriff's lackeys. I thought at first this was his newest trick; but you've only treated me with kindness so far-and a thinly veiled threat when I potentially threatened your child, which I daresay was perfectly justified."

"You jump to conclusions rather quickly," she teases back in an effort to banish, or at least hide, her worries-especially if he doesn't share them. "One drink offer and you throw caution to the wind?"

He places a hand over his heart in a dramatic show, and who knew Robin Hood had an affinity for theatrics?

"Ah, but do you intend to administer poison? I beg you to reconsider-I'm a hero after all."

Regina rolls her eyes, secretly amused.

"And much too cocky for your own good. There goes my admiration for the Prince of Thieves. Oh how easily those pedestals crumble."

He laughs at that, warm and deep from his belly. He has a good laugh. It pulls a smile out of her in turn.

The smell of hot chocolate lures them downstairs to discuss the next steps.

"How about this then?" He takes a careful sip, eyes blowing wide as he hums his approval much to Henry's amusement. "Is this magical? Because if this sort of thing is common in your world, I am rather partial to it. No sheriff, no royal overlords, contraptions that do the work for you-I'd be tempted to stay if I didn't miss my boy to bits already."

"You're a father?" they echo together.

Robin smiles, bright and adoring.

"Does your book not mention that? His name is Roland, and he's been the light of my life for four years now."

Guilt churns in Regina's stomach. Other risks aside, a father and son have been separated, and it's all her fault. This wouldn't have happened if she'd only just told Henry the truth in the first place. But how could she have known they share these peculiar powers?

"We need to get you home."

"Or," Henry cuts in, bouncing in the chair, "maybe we could get Roland here instead! That way we get to meet him, and you won't miss him so much while we look for a way to fix this."

"Henry, I know how much you like Robin Hood, but this is not the time-and Roland isn't written into your book, I don't see how that would even work." But that's not entirely true-she'd done it before, written into the margins of pages in red ink and watched the words come to life just like the original text.

Unfortunately for her, Robin favours Henry's way.

"The young lad has a point, actually. Roland would be safer here, what with Nottingham loose in Sherwood and me not there to defend the camp."

Thud.

The air in the kitchen freezes.

A series of dull thuds and feet shuffling resonates from upstairs.

Someone is sneaking around the landing.

"Henry," Regina mutters as Robin makes a quick job of notching an arrow to his bow, "what story were you reading when Robin popped up? Was the sheriff of Nottingham in it?"

Henry nods.

"Get behind me," she whispers and grabs the baseball bat from the corner.

Robin Hood stands beside her, arrow at the ready, as the steps come ever closer. Regina grips the wood and exchanges a glance with the man whose presence, though very much part of the problem, oddly calms her erratically beating heart.

"An honour to fight alongside you, milady."

Despite the adrenalin coursing through her, her grin comes easily in response to his own.

"And you-thief."

The steps still just outside the kitchen door; the enemy is upon them.

_Here we go, then._


End file.
